The present invention relates in general to controlling electrical accessories in an automotive vehicle, and more specifically, to a voice activated control system integrated with manual control elements and associated displays to provide a simple and efficient user interface.
Recent advances in electronics have made more and more accessory functions available for controllable use in mobile vehicles, such as navigation aids, audio entertainment using various types of recorded media, precise climate control, and remote control of many vehicle components and systems. To help insure that a driver can take advantage of this proliferation of features and controls without interfering with the task of driving a vehicle, a simple and efficient driver-machine interface (DMI) is desired. For example, a desire to maintain the driver's hands on the steering wheel and eyes on the road has led to an interest in voice recognition technologies. These systems initiate control actions based on spoken commands being recognized using advanced computation techniques.
Voice activation systems require the user to learn a predetermined grammar (i.e., a set of spoken commands) which can be recognized. As the number of systems and functions controlled by speech control increases, the user is required to learn an ever larger grammar. To simplify the voice recognition task and minimize the required grammar, it has been suggested to provide manual control switches on a steering wheel which may be reconfigured using voice commands. However, system cost and complexity are driven up as more features and components are added to the voice actuation system itself. Furthermore, control operations can still remain complex and difficult to use and remember without an appropriate interface.